Coffee Table Book of: Cows (Hardcover)

Description

Coffee Table Book of: Cows is a large-format coffee table book about cattle, printed edge to edge in colour, one picture to a page and the widest carried across two. Most are breed portraits, out in open country.

It begins with the breeds of the British Isles: two Belted Galloways standing well apart on a hillside, a red Hereford bull with a white face, a golden-and-white Guernsey on a clifftop above the sea, black Aberdeen Angus grazing, and an English Longhorn, its horns curving down around its face.

Then the breeds of continental Europe: a creamy-white Charolais bull, a white Chianina bull above a valley of cypresses and olive groves, a Brown Swiss below snowy peaks, and Holstein Friesians grazing beside a long, straight ditch.

Then those of South Asia: a mottled red-and-white Gir with a domed forehead and long, curled ears, and two white Ongole bulls standing well apart. Of the Americas: a Texas Longhorn with horns spreading wide over dry grass and prickly pear, a pale grey Brahman bull with long, drooping ears, and a white Blanco Orejinegro with black ears.

Then horn, hump and hide: a Hungarian Grey bull’s lyre-shaped horns seen head-on, the ringed base of a horn, the tall hump of a white Ongole bull, the deep folds of a Gir cow’s dewlap, a dark eye fringed with pale lashes, a wet muzzle, a Highland’s long red coat beaded with rain, and cloven hooves in clear, shallow water.

Then the calves: a Belted Galloway calf close beside its mother, white Charolais calves lying together in long grass, a Jersey calf with big, fuzzy ears, a pale Brahman calf beside its grey mother, and two red-and-white calves side by side in straw.

Toward the end, the seasons and the weather: cattle grazing among buttercups, a Red Poll in tall grass and ox-eye daisies, a roan Shorthorn among fallen yellow leaves, black cattle with snow lying on their backs, the frosted muzzle and steaming breath of a red cow, and a chestnut Pinzgauer on a misty mountain pasture at dawn.

Short notes run through the book. They are about cattle rather than about the pictures: what the word Wagyu means, what a zebu’s hump is made of, how long a cow carries her calf, and what the tuft at the end of her tail is called and why she swings it.

Printed in full colour on heavy 150gsm coated paper at 216 x 279 mm (8.5 x 11 inches), as a hardcover with the art printed on the case.